Getting Started with Moodle Virtual Learning Environment. Student User Guide

Transcription

1 Started with Moodle Virtual Learning Environment Student User Guide Belgrade, 2016

2 Contents 1. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT MOODLE THE FACULTY S MOODLE ACCESS AND LOGGING IN User profile settings MENU AND COURSE NAVIGATION Docking menus Navigation block and finding your courses Course structure and Breadcrumb menu COURSE CONTENT TYPES Lessons Quizzes ANNOUNCEMENTS AND COMMUNICATIONS IN FBEE MOODLE Messages WHERE CAN YOU FIND INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR GRADES? Grades user menu item Grades from Administration block... 15

3 1. General information about Moodle Moodle is the virtual learning environment (VLE) used in the Faculty of Business Economics and Entrepreneurship. The word 'Moodle' is an acronym of Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. It is also a verb in the English language which means idle meandering or trifling with something. Moodle VLE is a web application being used in a web browser. Mozilla Firefox is the officially recommended browser to use, although any other web browser should also perform well. Your teachers will use Moodle to provide course materials such as handouts, lecture notes and PowerPoint presentations. Your teachers may also use Moodle in more interactive ways, which will require your input. Activities such as lessons, discussion forums, chat rooms, glossaries and assignment drop-boxes are often used. Quizzes and Crossword puzzles are even more engaging interactive tools and Wikis are activities suitable for cooperation and work in groups. This document will demonstrate the look and feel of Moodle and describe some of the features. 3

4 2. The Faculty s Moodle Access and Logging in To access Moodle VLE used in the Faculty of Business Economics and Entrepreneurship (FBEE Moodle) you should perform the following steps: 1. Open your web browser of choice and type the in its address input box and hit ENTER key on a keyboard. 2. On the site s home page, you can select English as your user interfacee language, as pointed out by the orange arrow in Figure 1. Figure 1. Home page of the FBEE Moodle 3. On the FBEE Moodle s home page in English, you should click on the Log in link in the upper right corner, as illustrated in Figure 2a. a b Figure 2. a) Log in link on the FBEE Moodle home page b) Log in page 4. In the corresponding input boxes on the Log in page, enter your user name and password that you have got upon enrolment and click the Log in button at the bottom of page (Figure 2b). After your successful logging in, you will see your name instead of the Log in link in the upper right corner, as shown in Figure 3, and you will have access to courses for all subjects you have been enrolled on as well User profile settingss When you click on the arrow beside your name (as highlighted in Figure 3) the user drop down menu is shown with following options: Profile, Grades, Messages, Preferences (and the option to Log out). If you click the Profile option, you will be directed to your user profile page, where you can click the Edit profile link, as shown in Figure 4a, to the page where you can update your data, such as a picture, address, city/town, country, time zone, as well as your interests and social data, such as your web page, ICQ, Skype, phone, mobile phone and your Faculty identity (ID) number (Figure 5). The same Edit profile link can be obtained by clicking on the Preferences drop down menu option (when the page on Figure 4b is displayed). The Preferences page also contains the link to select your preferred language. The selected language will be automatically selected for user interface in the site after you logged in. 4

5 user menu dock location available courses, categorized by curriculum and school year Faculty news and announcements send to dock Figure 3. FBEE Moodle home page for a logged-in student edit profile edit profile preferred language a b Figure 4. a) User profile page b) User preferences Messages drop down menu option opens the page where you can exchange text messages with other users (teachers and students). Grades drop down menu option opens the page where you can review your grades for all courses you are enrolled on. The last two drop down menu options will be explained in further details in the respective chapters. Figure 5. Edit profile 5

6 3. Menu and Course Navigation Understanding navigations through menus and courses is essential for using the Moodle VLE Docking menus In order to preserve web page space for displaying course content, blocks from left and right side of page can be sent to so-called dock location on the left edge of page. Buttons to send a block to dock for two blocks on the right side of page, as well as dock location are highlighted in Figure 3. You can actually have more space for course content only if you put all blocks from one side (left or right) on the dock Navigation block and finding your courses When you are logged in, all available courses in the Faculty are shown on the left-hand side of your home page. Probably the most important block for you on the right-hand side of the page is the Navigation block, shown in Figure 6. That is where you can find all content that is relevant for you. First of all, course categories (named after the FBEE study programmes) are the sub options of the Courses drop down option. The courses you are enrolled on are then sub options of these course categories and their subcategories (being the school years of a study programme). And if you further expand sub options for your courses, you can follow the hierarchy of instructional units (topics, themes) and instructional resources and activities within them in a particular course. Figure 6. Navigation block and available courses in the FBEE Moodle 3.3. Course structure and Breadcrumb menu After you click the link to desired course or to some of its content (from the course list or the 6

7 Navigation block), you are directed to the desired course home page or to its content respectively. Organizational Design course home page is shown in Figure 7. breadcrumb menu course content in themes Figure 7. Organizational design course home page All available course content is listed on the course home page, classified into instructional units called themes or topics, as well as in the Navigation block. The Breadcrumb menu is highlighted at the top of the page shown in Figure 7. It consists of hierarchically organized, horizontally laid out links (menu items) that lead to superior contexts of the VLE, being course category containing the currently displayed course, then next left item comprises its right-hand side neighbour. Hence, the first Breadcrumb menu item is Home, as a context with the widest scope of the whole site - FBEE virtual learning environment. You can use these Breadcrumb menu items to go back to a context with wider scope and possibilities to select. 7

8 4. Course content types Getting Course content consists of instructional resources and instructional activities. Each instructional resource or activity type has its own icon shown before the resource or activity name. Instructional resources are lectures presented to you as PDF documents or PowerPoint presentations. You only need to read them carefully and no other activity is expected from you with them. Every time you click a resource/activity link in the list or in the Navigation block, you remain on the same course page, and new download of resource is initiated. On the other hand, instructional activities request some action from you Lessons More interactive and thus more effective lectures are performed through the Lesson instructional activity. In a Lesson activity, you should answer some control questions on some points of instruction flow and you advance through lesson branches according to your answers. The most common case of lesson instruction is that a wrong answer takes you back to read a particular part of a lesson again and a right answer makes you advance toward the end of lesson Quizzes As a standard, each instructional theme (topic) includes Quiz instructional activity called Self- your best result on checking test. These tests can be worked out as many times as you need, and each test is counted for total exam points. The same Quiz activity is used for colloquium tests, but with more restrictive settings (only one attempt to work on test is allowed, time limit to work on test etc.). When you click a link that opens (a test as) a Quiz activity instance, you are directed to a page (shown in Figure 8) with the button Attempt quiz now to start your attempt, and with the message Grading method: Highest grade (for colloquium tests you actually has one and only grade). For self-checking tests, the button could also offer you to continue with previously attempted test if that case actually occurred. to leave the quiz Figure 8. Entering a Quiz activity After you click the button, you are directed to the page for solving the test, as illustrated in Figure 9. If you change your mind and decide to leave the test quiz without completing it, you can use the Navigation block or Breadcrumb menu any time to select another activity or even any other course or site home page and navigate anywhere else from there. Although there are more possible question types, you will likely answer the multi-choice questions, as illustrated in Figure 9. You are asked to select one or more correct answers, by clicking into radio or check box before the selected answer. Parts of correct answers to multi- 8

9 choice questions are also calculated in your final score. Figure 9. Starting solving a test... You can review your current success in the Quiz navigation block on the left-hand side. Each square means a question in the test and links to it. You can also Finish attempt... on the corresponding link there. The end of page with test questions answered and Next button is shown in Figure 10. You come to that by scrolling the page or alternatively you can zoom out the quiz page (usually by pressing keyboard shortcut CTRL and keys simultaneously) and see more, but smaller text. Figure 10. Answering all questions in a quiz... 9

10 Although you can use the link Finish attempt... from Quiz navigation block, it is more advisable to use the Next button at the end of quiz page. After clicking on it, you are directed to Summary of attempt page (Figure 11). You can review and check if you answered all questions (and squares are greyed in Quiz navigation block) and then you can Return to attempt or Submit all and finish (click the button you want). Figure 11. Quiz Summary of attempt page When you want to submit all questions and finish the test, you are asked once more if you really finish the quiz, because you will no longer be able to change your answers for this attempt and you are offered to confirm (Submit all and finish) or to Cancel finishing a quiz (Figure 12). Figure 12. One more check before finishing the quiz... If you confirmed finishing the quiz, you are directed to results of your attempt, shown in Figure 13. The most important info is in the header of this review, namely Marks and Grade. In the illustrated example, Marks: 2.43/5.00 calculated the points within quiz, and Grade: 0.49 out of 1.00 (49%) is the scaled value of points for the course you get by solving this quiz. Of course, since this is a self-checking test, you can be more successful in any of your further attempts and that score will be counted instead. There are also highlighted wrong answers in red, and correct answers in green colour in this review of quiz results, as well as in squares of Quiz navigation block (partially answered questions carry a yellow square label). 10

11 Figure 13. Quiz - Review of attempt results When solving a colloquium test (or any other time-limited quiz), you will have a remaining-time: xx:xx notification all the time displayed in the upper left corner of quiz page. 11

12 5. Announcements and Communications in FBEEE Moodle Being a distant learner, it is very important for you to stay in touch with all events occurring in the Faculty. This purpose is fullfilled by dedicated blocks on the right-hand side of the site s home page (Figure 14), as follows: Main menu block has News menu item, where you can find all related news and announcements (it is like a forum in a sense that you can reply on existing posts from Faculty administration, but you can not post your initial posts) Navigation block has Site pages drop down option with social communications options, such us site blogs, badges, notes, tags etc. Search forums block has input box to enter keywords for searching in existing posts on all available forums Online users block presents currently present users on the site (students and teachers as well). Latest news block consists of the latest news published in News forum where administration stuff had put announcements that had not been date- and time related. Upcoming events and Calendar blocks emphasize scheduled tasks for you. Upcoming events are listed as text, and Calendar is an interactive tool with highlighted date fields for dates that have some activities for you scheduled. Calendar shows a popup to you with your important events for the date whose field is mouse-overed Messages a b c Figure 14. Moodle blocks for announcements and communications Messages block, shown in Figure 14a, displays information about Moodle messages arrived for 12

13 you. If you want to send a Moodle text message to any user in FBEE Moodle, then you should use Messages link that opens Messages page, shown in Figure 15a. enter text to search for contacts a b c enter message text and send message d Figure 15. a) Initial page for sending Moodle text messages b) search string entered c) contact found d) write and send message 13

14 At the beginning, you have no contacts recorded in your list and that is why you would enter (at least part of) your message recipient name in the search input box and click Search people and messages button (Figure 15b). Search results are then shown in the page with + button to add (record) found contact to the list (Figure 15c). After clicking the + button, you are directed to the page where you can write message (in a text box) and send it to this added contact by clicking Send message button (Figure 15d). If your message recipient is also online on the site, she will be immediately notified in a popupp message in lower right corner of his web page (and in Messages block as well). If she is not online at the moment when message for her is received, she will also be notified by . (Off course, the same conditions holds if you are the recipient of someone s message). After the message has been sent, you get the page illustrated in Figure 16. sent message is in a message queue Figure 16. Message has been sent successfully The people you exchange message often with will be immediately available in your contact list, so you will not need searching for contacts all the time. 14

15 6. Where Can You Find Information About Your Grades? You can find information about your grades in at least two ways. The first way is via Grades drop down user menu item, as explained in Chapter 1, and the second way is via Grades drop down menu item from Administration block Grades user menu item After you click on Grades user menu item, you are directed to the page shown in Figure 17, where you can review your current grades for all your courses. Figure 17. Grades user menu item opens review of grades for all your courses 6.2. Grades from Administration block While you are within a particularr course, after you click Grades in Administration block and select User report in the drop down box, you can review detailed data regarding your success in activities of the particular course, along with maximum points achievable per each activity. User report example is shown in Figure 18. Figure 18. User report - course points by course activities (with maximums) 15